With all the negative comments, I was expecting this to be horrible, but I ended up finding it pretty decent so far.

The protagonist is established damn near instantly as an anti-hero. It got somewhat dark quick, but it's still pretty lighthearted. The first jokes that poke fun of the fact that he has a crappy gift and doesn't give a damn are great. The tone has stayed nicely between dark, but not overly brooding or angsty, and lighthearted, but never slapstick.

More than anything, it has done well to pace itself properly for a manga. It's not full of completely unnecessary technobabble and generic fantasy worldbuilding like every other light novel adaption out there, and individual chapters have a decently worked plot structure to them.


The only thing I have to argue about is that I have no idea how anyone sees this as wish fulfillment. The protagonist gets shit on by the second page of the manga (technically the first page if the point about the shield hero isn't seen as a jab), so I don't see any fulfillment in the MC. I suppose there is the part about being stuck inside of a game, but it's not like it's anywhere close to Sword Art Online or Log Horizon in terms of wish fulfillment (yet neither of those are close to the level of unholy Sue found in Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei, so whatever).

Come to me Haters I RATE THIS 00000000!!!

oh well just to put it. this way People judge to easily. they base it on first few chapters.
they want it to be explain in just 1 2 or 3 chapters.
in short they want a fast pace Story.
Sorry dude this is from the novel.
so don't expect the situation and explanation to be in the first few chapters.
i think the manga is just making a cliffhanger thing.
i just wish this manga be at monthly so i won't wait for a very long time for it to be released.
anyway just i'm saying. don't read this crap until it probably reach around chapter 30 hehe >
about the novel it's around 600 chapters so don't expect it to have no explanation in the manga

... Last updated on December 12th, 2014, 12:15am

By no means do I think this is bad. I think this is a great manga but as stated before, it fits the shounen category more than the seinen one.

One of my fellow reviewers stated this already but it seems the author was trying to turn a typical "normal guy is summoned to a fantasy world to be the hero" story into something new by adding more to it. Betrayal and rejection, that is.
Indeed, the main character gets permanently annoyed at the king and the other heroes for betraying him and becomes asocial... but that's it ?

I mean, the author is trying to emulate a realistic reaction to such a betrayal ? I don't think he tried to put himself into the shoes of the MC as much as he should've... this guy has been betrayed by his only teammate, the whole kingdom thinks of him as a disgusting guy, he has no funds to begin with and is treated like pest wherever he goes... and yet he still tries to save those people ? No one in their right mind would do that in reality.

Yes, the MC behaves anti-socially but yet he still tries to save all those idiots, that's so unrealistic. And then later he gets a harem...

This manga is excellent nevertheless thanks to its originality and it has a good artwork. However, there was potential for the author to do so much more.
It started with an original plot but bit by bit, it gets more and more cliche'd.

You will see, this manga will have a good romcom harem ending with all the other heroes apologizing. I'm not spoiling because I haven't read the novel but it's obvious that's how it's going to end up.

... Last updated on November 20th, 2014, 7:55am

Unjustified? Who are you to say that? Especially as if its fact.. Hey buddy, learn something about opinions: their subjective. You may not like this manga, but guess what? Some people do. Oh no right? Someone likes something I don't? I better bash them, it, and everything else and act like my opinion is the end all.

He literally joined just to post this too, wow..

Ignoring him, despite being only a few chapters in and having the story advance fairly quickly, I seriously like and enjoy this manga. The characters have developed nicely so far, and not everyone
is evil or right. Its setting up the story nicely.

... Last updated on November 17th, 2014, 11:45pm

Note: Although I feel that this manga's overall rating is unjustified, it's still no where near as bad as some other mangas in the genre. Though, those mangas also have fittingly lower ratings..

———
Very very cringeworthy. Also, the slave-master relationship that develops later on... ha ha, no.

"Oh woe is me, **** the world. I'll just become the true hero no one appreciates, working hard behind the scenes for the good of the people of some random world! Beware of me and my icy glare and antisocial demeanor!" (Not too atypical for a person at that middle school-high school age but that doesn't make reading about that kind of MC any less irritating)

I wouldn't classify this as seinen. Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari is more of an unrealistic fulfillment-type shounen.

7-7.5 max. I would personally give it a 6 or so. Pretty good art and the plot isn't a complete mess so it doesn't really deserve any lower than a 5. Anything 9 or higher is over the top... just because the manga is "pretty good" as some commenters have mentioned doesn't mean it deserves a "10." It's not a masterpiece. Plot OR art wise.

... Last updated on November 15th, 2014, 1:28pm

So far its a good master and slave relationship and looking forwards for more demi-humans comrade..
The Humans have a realistic view in this and that why one can really feel whats going on..
Not to mention a stupid and puppet hero is rare..

I love the art, the setting, the character development, even the plot to some extent. To be honest, I never thought that I'd come to enjoy this manga.

What is awesome about it (to me, anyway) is that Naofumi is portrayed as a humble hero: protecting the people from the shadows, not basking in glory by defeating some boss monster and then expecting some kind of reward.

To be honest, some elements resemble allegories of our contemporary society: manipulation of media to twist the truth; people who actually believe what they are told without further investigation; the corrupted king represents those with power like the government, political figures... Etc.

All in all, I'm looking forward to the future updates!

Currently this manga, with 8 translated chapters (less than 2 volumes), has a rating of 4.95/5.00 (393 votes) on Batoto, an average of 9.1/10.0 and a Bayesian average of 8.78/10.00 here (making it currently the 84th highest rated series of all time be them manga, manhwa, manhua or light novels) and stands at 135 on MAL's manga/manhwa/manhua/light novel ranking. All of this is nothing short of a tremendous over-rate. These ratings give the impression of a literary masterpiece and what you'll get is a piece of severe pandering to video game fans, a series that serves merely as wish-fulfillment. Does that make it bad? No, as a piece of entertainment it served its purpose but it doesn't step ahead of very cheap entertainment.

The whole series is crafted to appeal to video game fans and reclusive nerds in general. It aims for the feelings of 14-18 year old loser kids that feel the whole world is against them in spite of their brilliant smarts and outstanding talent or any adults that went through that phase (or haven't outgrown it yet). The main character finds himself in a world he doesn't belong and everyone he comes across hates him for no good reason. They hate him for just being, just existing. He is betrayed heavily as the tag in bold up there will tell you, just to make people realize - he is surrounded by enemies, everyone hates him, he's a good guy being tortured for no reason at all, damn society, didn't even give him a chance!! This is done to duplicate the feelings that a lot of people feel during their teenage years, some more heavily than others. It's simple pandering, simple cheap entertainment. It is only immersive in the sense that you can see yourself in the main character. This isn't hard either since the main character has no real personality or particularly defining points besides the "I'm so edgy! Everyone hates me! I'll show them!" that he develops after being hated and betrayed for god knows what. Obviously besides that, he is brilliant, brave, kind and yet has that edgy attitude at times. The author couldn't even come up with a decent reason for him to be hated. At several points you'll notice that there is no justification to what is being done, in fact it's just plain illogical, especially considering it's so widespread. It's like looking at the world from the eyes of an edgy 16 year old kid. Simply put it's bad writing and poor world-making.

Talking about world-making, this is - as you probably already noticed - another entry in the increasingly irritating video game-related stories that have cropped up in the world of anime and manga like a bad fungus or infection that you just can't get rid of (considering the number of LNs with this premise is also ludicrous, this is a trend that'll last at least another 3-5 years as more and more of those LNs get adapted to manga and anime). Seems to me that authors nowadays are incapable of writing fantasy. Or maybe they're just lazy - after all it's too much work to create an original world. What they do is use the excuse of "They went inside a video-game" or "This world works like a video-game" to create a cheap as hell premise and just execute a fantasy story without having to bother with any kind of complicated world-building that would come along with it. They just use a bunch of video-game tropes and elements which are easy to portray and are "free" to include as many cliche elements as they want. I mean who can criticize that, they're inside a video-game remember? It's cliche because it's a typical video-game! The backstory is lame and cliched because it's a typical video-game! The villains are cliche because it's a typical video-game! Perfect excuse for the half-assed world-building. Tate no Yuusha is another one of these (though it isn't the worst of them, not even close, it's actually among the better ones). The world is cliche and has cliche problems. This adds to the problem I've mentioned before. This half-assed world makes this less immersive than it should have been.

The story is very cliche (it's a typical video-game, after all). It hasn't shown much so far, it could have its turns later on but for now it seems very typical and fairly predictable. The whole world is against this guy, either it makes sense or not. Yet, he is actually very heroic and worries about the people. From here and knowing that there is some evil that attacks periodically (because that is so effective) you should be able to see most scenes coming.

Now... Is it bad? Not exactly - I gave this a 7 in spite of all my ranting above. It is cheap entertainment but it does keep you entertained so in that sense it's successful. I don't pretend to be some kind of superior human being and I was a loser during my teenage years so I can't help but feel this emotional ease to feel some scenes that the mc goes through from up close. It's a bit more of a guilty pleasure than a solid entertainment series. The series is cute and funny and the emotional gratification that you feel as the mc goes through things makes it more engrossing than it should be considering how half-assed a lot of its elements are.This is not a good series but is it enjoyable and isn't a waste of time if you're looking for fun and fun alone. It is far from being the worst of the cheap video-game related series out there and probably stands as one of the better ones in that respect. That being said it doesn't come even near to justify the rankings and ratings I mentioned. Said numbers should be reserved for series with legitimate quality and solid writing that have deeper elements and much more work put into them.

... Last updated on October 11th, 2014, 6:45am

This is a great manga so far really enjoying it and can not wait to read more hope they make a anime version of this soon.

Would but if available in my country.

I am really surprised by how much i like this manga.
There are a number of manga's on the market that start of in the same way: average guy sent to fantasy world with rpg game elements.
The hero can only use a shield as his weapon, which falls in line with current trends of Japanese manga/anime of underpowering lead male characters.
However, the story is really good so far with all the betrayal and subterfuge. The other heroes, the king and the princess are self centered enough that you really feel for the lead character. The main character also has a vast variety of magic shields at his disposal that make his battles very interesting and his interaction with his companion Raph is very cute.
I look forward to Naofumi's future deeds as he gains more companions and shows the world just what a true hero is.
Definitely my favorite new manga of 2014.